


what forever means

by awenswords



Series: The Magicians One-Shots [2]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Angst, Implied/Reference Suicidal Ideation, Post-Season/Series 04, The Library
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-27 00:03:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18292841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awenswords/pseuds/awenswords
Summary: from the prompt: Q sells his afterlife to save El and knows he has an eternity of pain ahead of him but he doesn’t tell anyone





	what forever means

“You know there are no loopholes to this, right?” Penny’s gaze is stern and he looks like a stranger in his librarian suit, all gray colors. He doesn't have that snide look to his eyes anymore, no disdain or drunkenness or fierce, burning anger, "Quentin, you're going to be here so long you'll forget who Eliot is."

“No, I - I won’t.”

“Is it really worth this? You’re selling your fucking afterlife away. To the _library_. Your _enemy_.”

“It’s the only way. Look - you did it for us, for Kady, actually. I’m doing it for Eliot.” Quentin looks down at the smooth wooden table and pushes a strand of behind his ear. Nervously twists the hem of his shirt. Eliot.

“That’s not the - "

Quentin looks up, suddenly startlingly furious, “Don’t tell me that’s not the same thing. You’re a - you’re a fucking  _psychic_ , Penny. You know exactly what El means to me. I’m doing this.”

He tries not to think about near-eternity spent pushing crates of monochrome books in a monochrome room. Dead air and no breath in his lungs. No golden coin to cross the river, no ticket to Elysium. He wonders where his Karmic Circle might have been - the cottage, perhaps, with Teddy and Arielle and Eliot. But that's lost now, as he scribbles his signature on the dotted line. It's far too ordinary to be such a defining moment. He's selling away his afterlife in this gray place, with a ballpoint pen that's nearly out of ink. It feels like opening a bank account or picking up a prescription (little white capsules in an orange container, promises of serotonin and corrected thought patterns that never quite stuck). He dots the i and slides the packet of crisp paper across the desk. There's something sad in Penny's eyes.

"You're going to regret this, man," Penny mutters under his breath as he staples the papers together and slots them into a file cabinet labeled AFTERLIFE DEALS. It's all so corporate.

"I won't," Quentin says, and it's true, he doesn't feel any regret when Penny shrugs and Quentin suddenly finds himself in Marina's living room. It takes his eyes a moment to adjust to the full-color world. He'll probably miss colors when he dies.

There's a loud crash from the kitchen at the same time, and Julia shoots to her feet with _what happened?_ written in her eyes. Quentin doesn't feel victorious, but he feels something besides careful nothingness, so. Progress.

"I got El back."

And he did - there's Eliot, with real life in his eyes and none of the Monster's dead gaze, stumbling from the kitchen like he's taking his first steps, "What - what the _fuck?_ Q?" Quentin is at his side in an instant, helping him stagger to the minimalist sofa with it's gray-and-white pillows. He want's to say something but he can't, not when Eliot is fixing him with sharp, bright eyes and saying something that sounds like an apology in his perfect, smooth voice. Quentin can't hear it, can only lunge forwards and wrap the other man in his arms, close his eyes against the emotion that's rising in his throat.

After a moment, Eliot pulls back and says, "What did you do?"

"Nothing - nothing, El. You're back. That's what matters, right?"

"No, Q, because I know you and you might have done anything. Julia - what the fuck did he do?"

"I don't know," she says, and they both look so confused and sad that Quentin decides he's never telling them how much he did, what he sold.

He's never going to see his son again, never going to see his wife again or his grandkids. In dark moments, he's thought about what he'd say to Teddy when he found him in the afterlife, and Quentin always thought it would be soon because he knows he's a candle just seconds away from being blown out _(woosh, there goes his life)_ all to easily. Either by his own hand or by some self-sacrificial plan that, yeah, probably counts as his own hand. It was all preordained, in his mind, stepping back through the cottage doors and sweeping Arielle off the floor. Ask little Julie what her life was like, because he died before she was old enough to cast complicated spells or to kiss boys and girls, and he wants to know about her life.

If Eliot knew, he'd never forgive him. So he can never know.

Two weeks later Penny gets another visitor. Eliot, wild and mad, cigarette clenched between pale, shaking fingers. Penny doesn't remember him wearing two wedding rings, one silver, one copper.

"Can I help you?"

He drags a chair out violently, sits down, shakes ash onto a stack of very important files. Eliot wants to scream until the Library shakes and collapses and turns to dust. His chest hurts with something terrible and furious, this sad hot anger that's pushing at his chest and threatening to spill over through his throat and eyes, tears, tears, tears. He lost his voice when Quentin told him about the fucking deal, could only grit his teeth and down whisky and klonopin.

He might be a little high right now, if his trembling hands and the creeping exhaustion behind his eyes is anything to go by.

"How could you let him do it?" Eliot growls.

"Quentin?"

"Yes, fucking Quentin sold his goddamn - his, his soul to you bastards."

They were supposed to finally get things right in the afterlife.

"Take mine too," Eliot says, grabbing for a blue ballpoint pen despite the dread that's dripping down his chest, "Take mine."

Penny looks doubtful, "You're not in any state to be signing contracts."

Eliot thinks he might be a little hysterical, "Give me the fucking paper. I was supposed to get _eternity_ with him, we were supposed to see our _kids_ again," he didn't know he could feel this sad, even when middle-school asshole pushed him into trashcans and threw pencils at him he never felt this type of anger and deep, deep sadness, "The only thing I ever did right was love Quentin, and I swear to god if you take eternity away from us I will kill you with this fucking pen."

When Eliot signs the paper he feels flooded with relief.

Penny files the packet away in the C section, right before Quentin Coldwater-Waugh. He waits to see them with their wrists chained to carts, pushing books down long hallways for eternity. 


End file.
